


splinters on the floor are the only constants

by bluish



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Blood, F/M, Synesthesia, eye horror-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluish/pseuds/bluish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fact was in black and white;<br/>fiction was color.</p>
            </blockquote>





	splinters on the floor are the only constants

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the Avengers but contained within it!!!! the Loki mind control aftermath is sort of a big part
> 
> Hawkeye in this is mainly Hawkguy's Hawkeye rather than the Avengers' Hawkeye though. So many Hawkeye's I s2fg
> 
> ((warned for underage to be safe but nothing really happens))

Clint remembers nothing of his accident, which is the way he refers to it, the way he insists it is an accident is loud and defiant, but there are blue shards in his eyes that won’t shatter no matter how hard he blinks.  
  
They cut his eyes and embed his lids until small blue freckles appear and he tries to hide it with the dark sunglasses which he makes part of himself.  
  
“Stop with the shades act, Barton. You look like a tool.”  
  
The sharps of Romanova’s tinged red words linger in the kitchen of the helicarrier. He hears in colors and she is candy red, the kind of red you don’t forget, the kind which bleeds through your dreams.  
  
“Even you gotta admit these make me look badass. Is it warming your cold bleak heart, that a blonde hottie never did grow outta teenhood? ‘Cause you didn’t either.”  
  
The last words he pronounces with a bitter pause between each one.  
  
“No. I didn’t grow up. I moved to America, became a spy, the best fucking spy America’s ever seen, killed more men than you have spare arrows, suffered and fought more than your life is even worth. I don’t think _I’m_ the one who’s stuck in high school.”  
  
Clint shrugs.  
  
“And “blonde hottie”? You know we reclaimed that title to Bobbi last week.”  
“You ain’t stuck in Russia? That’s why you watch the news in Russian, so you don’t forget your language. That’s why you’re teaching yourself ballet again, so you knows you got them pointe’s perfect. That’s why you gotta shoot down every man who shows you affection.”  
“Don’t say it.”  
“Literally shoot ‘em!”  
“Oh my God. Jesus, Clint. We all have our home comforts.”  
“Yeah. Shame yours are all about bad marriages and identity theft and blood under fingernails.”  
“Shame yours are all about private trick shots for circus patrons old enough to be your dad. Shame yours are all about living in wet tents and picking pockets. Shut up, Barton.”  
“Sure. Then don’t talk about my sunglasses.”  
  
They spar like this every other week, before a big job, before a crackdown on monsters looking to get a feel of Stark Industries armour. They guess it riles the other up.  
  
“And it’s carney, Natasha. _Carney_. Not circus.”  
  
Clint grabs the coffee pot, the red girl brewed it about a half hour ago, and downs about a cupful, the too-warm caffeine drugging his mouth. He never did like using mugs. Never liked the hassle of washing up, maybe, or he liked the fact everyone who went to the coffee pot that morning got a little bit of Barton in their cups.  
  
He didn’t want people to forget him, so he didn’t use mugs.  
He didn’t want people to forget him, so he left crude drawings on whiteboards. He left stupid notes on all the noticeboards.  
He didn’t want people to forget him so he’d get them all pissed off to fight better.  
  
Clint remembers nothing of his accident and gets diagnosed with PTSD. Clint remembers nothing of his accident and gets diagnosed with selective amnesia. Depression. Insomnia. Clint remembers nothing of his accident and fires his doctor.  
  
“Sorry, doc. I don’t need help.”  
  


_At least I got help._

  
Of course he took it hard. His eyes stained blue for long enough that Tony remarked he looked like a Smurf came in his eye. Steve quipped that a Smurf’s ejaculate may not be blue. This led to a Smurfs marathon in which nothing was resolved.  
  
The Avengers then made a Wikipedia page about a transmitted disease they called “Blue Eye” documenting the state of Clint’s eye. The page survived for four days until someone took it down, claiming false information.  
  
This was the first time they had laughed since the accident. They had to laugh.  
  
Clint remembers recovery.  
Clint remembers hospital beds and mint green beds, remembers bad midday tv and microwaved food.  
Clint remembers checking out and going back to work too early. Remembers the blip where he nearly got killed on a mission to San Diego.  
Clint remembers recovery.  
Clint remembers checking in again.  
  
He remembers blonde hair and white glasses. He remembers her hands, they only ever touched with hands, and he remembers the way her painted purple fingernails dug into his wrists when his heart rate slowed.  
  
“Bobbi. You don’t gotta be here.”  
“If you say that again I’ll snap your neck.”  
“In the good way?”  
“Not in the good way. Not until you’re fit for active service.”  
“Memories will get me by. God knows they have for long enough.”  
“You sap.”  
“Loser.”  
“No, seriously, that was among the most embarrassing things you've ever said.”  
“I’m dyin’ here, Morse. Don’t make it worse.”  
“Strike two.”  
  
He held her hand tight.  
  
He heard in colors and her voice was petrol blue, the kind you could taste on the tip of your tongue just before the first daily smoke.  
He heard in colors and she was near perfect.  
  
No color was ever as rich as Kate’s color. But that came later.  
  


_Who else would be calling your sorry ass?_

  
He remembers right now.  
Right now he was shooting targets in a testing lab.  
Right now he was getting better.  
  
Right now he was passing his physical.  
Next he’d be passing his medical.  
  
“No drugs?”  
“Dunno man, the blue stuff hit me pretty hard. Could have been magic drugs. No idea what they got on Asgard.”  
“Meth?”  
“No crystal. Probably just illusions. What I’m saying is that if I got anythin’ in me it’s ‘cause of that.”  
“So, no recreational drugs?”  
“Nah.”  
“No medical afflictions?”  
“Half deaf in right ear. ‘Part from that, nothing. I always heard that the ol’ hearing hits you later in life.”  
  
The doctor's voice was burnt orange and caring. She joked, "what did you say?" He laughs. She says, "I understand."  
  
She awards him 76 out of 90 on his evaluation.  
  
Two weeks later he was zipped tight in his S.H.I.E.L.D gear, arrows polished and sorted by name, his sunglasses cleaned and set out on the desk even though the blue blurs had all but cleared up.  
Sort of.  
  
The next mission to Portugal had been a success, a success in that nobody died. The way you measure the success rate at S.H.I.E.L.D is how many voices come back.  
  
He completed mission after mission, they kept him on for three years as part of the team, as part of the initiative. They’d had to live on the helicarrier until all they saw was silver and blacks. Tony grew tired. Steve stayed put. Bobbi and Natasha bonded so much they had plans to move in together after the affiliation. Bruce rarely hulked out, unless he had to. Nick and Maria got bored. They invented games. They even played Monopoly.  
  
After they had all said goodbye, Clint never saw Bobbi again.  
  
It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, or didn’t want to see her. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. They grew oceans apart.  
The ocean reminded him of her voice.

He moved back near Coney Island, and didn't have a place yet.

One afternoon he walked on the boardwalk, seeing slits of sea beneath the planks.

One afternoon Kate Bishop accidentally fired an arrow into Clint’s shoulder. One afternoon he fired one back.  
That was how it started.  
  
“Betcha couldn’tfight me up close,” he called to the origin of the arrow.  
“Really wanna bet, Mister?”  
  
She jumped down from the roof of a nearby multi-storey parking lot.  
She punched him in the face before he had a chance to blink.  
  
She grabbed his hand to pull him up, watching his nose spurt out red.

"Ten dollars, please!  
"We didn't shake on that-" Her hands rifle through his pockets for his wallet, which she retrieves. A bill is pulled, a grin is widened. She puts the wallet back.  
“I hope you remember this day as the day Hawkeye kicked your ass.”  
“What are you talking about? _I’m_ Hawkeye.”

She pulls his arrow from the hold on her back.  
  
“This yours?”  
“Yeah. Who else’d be firing arrows at you?”  
“You’d be surprised. Here you go. I don’t have use for ancient arrows.”  
“Why’d you take my name?”  
“You were my hero.”  
“Why ain’t I now?”  
  
Her laugh is raucous and heavy and she says, “because you aren’t that good in your old age.”

He asks where she lives.  
She says wherever.  
  
He asks what neighborhoods are nice.  
She says here.  
  
He buys an apartment in a beige apartment block and she stays there nearly every day.

She sleeps next to him. Her legs hold his. He complains. He kisses her, he wins her prizes on the arcades and he kisses her.  
She drops out of school and works on the pier. She sneaks him cokes from her work and he kisses her.

Sometimes she grabs his hand in public.  
Sometimes he grabs hers. Sometimes he watches for people's reactions. They both wear sunglasses, hers pointed and shiny.  
His are stolen from a cheap shades stand. 

Sometimes they stay inside until late, sorting equipment and listening to mix CDs.  
He bought a cheap computer and found a blank CD in the trash. He made her songs that were always scratched.

“You can go out sometimes, Kate, you don’t gotta stay in here with me all day.”  
“I’m not staying in here with you on _purpose_ , old man. If the cops catch me again I’ll be under house arrest.”  
“Something tells me I ain’t exactly the perfect father figure.”  
“Calm down Freud, I’m not here because of that. I’m here ‘cause we’ve got out of the team for a week. Gotta rest, you know?”  
“I get it. All’s I’m saying is there’s a beach. There’s a mall. There’s everything you need. You choose to sit on this splintered floor sorting arrows.”  
“ _I’m_ an archer too. They’re _my_ arrows too.”  
“When we've done this we can go shoot some targets, get some dinner. Wanna do that?”  
“Sure.”  
  
Whenever there are blue freckles on his eyelids she kisses them away.  
The purple of her voice is rich like royalty.  
  
Clint remembers nothing of his accident.  
Clint remembers beaches and steaks with sauce and sick dogs.  
Clint remembers candyfloss and Parent Teacher Associations.  
Clint remembers recovering. **  
**


End file.
